Inside The Wheelhouse: NFL Week 9 Thoughts

We are more then halfway through the 2010-2011 NFL season now and what a season it has been thus far. The NFL always seems to deliver time and time again with great play every Sunday, Monday and now Thursday. With that being said lets look back at Week 9 in the NFL.

The Dallas Cowboys once again top our list and not in a very good way as they were handed one of the worst prime time losses in NFL history this past Sunday night. The Dallas Cowboys rolled over and officially died on Sunday night in Green Bay, Wisconsin losing to the Green Bay Packers 45-7 in one of the most embarrassing games I have witnessed it quite sometime. The loss was so embarrassing that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was forced to do the one thing he didn’t want to do in the middle of the season, fire Wade Phillips.

Wade Phillips is out in Big D and offensive coordinator Jason Garrett is in now as the Interim Head Coach as it appears that Garrett will be looking to build his resume in the final weeks of the season and prove he can be the head coach of this team in 2011-2012. The move doesn’t come as a surprise to any fans of the NFL but the way it happened clearly was the biggest surprise of all. The way the Cowboys played on Sunday night literally co-signed Wade Phillips own pink slip as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys and was a disgusting display of what not to do when the chips are down.

Another NFL coach that was literally minutes away from probably getting his walking papers as well was Brad Childress of the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings came back in dramatic fashion in the 4th quarter of what appeared to be a huge loss to the Arizona Cardinals. Had the Cardinals closed the game out it was inevitable that Brad Childress and the Vikings season would be finished.

There are just too many negative rumors and negative comments coming from unnamed Vikings players about Brad Childress that keeping him in Minnesota just doesn’t see to be the right thing to do with the season getting closer to completion. Vikings players are to be said playing in spite of Childress rather then rolling over and dying like the Dallas Cowboys. Despite all their turmoil this is still a Vikings team that can rally and make a run at the playoffs. The next bad Vikings loss, where it appears that the season is over, will be sure Brad Childress last game as Head Coach of the Vikes.

The AFC West continues to show why it’s one of the worst divisions in all of Football as the Oakland Raiders are sitting atop of it right now after defeating the Kansas City Chiefs in an overtime thriller late Sunday afternoon. The Raiders and Chiefs have spent the last decade battling over draft positions rather then first place and it still getting hard to get used to as an NFL fan. But one thing is for sure, as much as I like to take shots at the Oakland Raiders, they are for real.

Oakland may be that surprise team in the AFC to sneak into the playoffs at 8-8 this season. They are showing that they can play a pretty impressive offense and their defense is putting people on notice. Is the black hole back in the NFL? It certainly has the most life we have seen from it in the last decade. Don’t sleep on Oakland right now.

Talk about a horrible loss this season for the New England Patriots. They came into Week 9 as the best team in the NFL at the current time with a record of 6-1 and they left looking a team that could be smoke & mirrors for the rest of the season. Losing to the Cleveland Browns and in convincing fashion is not the way you want to enter the 2nd half of the season where your schedule gets turned up a notch.

New England may be the best record team with the most question marks on their team. The move of sending Randy Moss out of New England looks to be haunting them right now as their offense just isn’t clicking despite having one of the best quarterbacks under center. Tom Brady is not a magician and can’t make these receivers or mediocre running backs help carry his load. It clearly is a state of affairs in New England where this season is clearly on Brady’s shoulders.

The New York Jets are breathing a sigh of relief after Week 9 thanks to their overtime victory over the Detroit Lions. The victory showed a huge sign of weakness in the New York Jets that like the New England Patriots, they may be the worst team with the best record in the NFL. They probably would be facing another loss today had it not been for what appears to be a season ending injury for Matt Stafford and an injury to kicker Jason Hanson.

Thanks to the victories this season, the Jets have been able to fly under the radar and most importantly so has Mark Sanchez. Sanchez hasn’t been the best offensive quarterback this season, struggling at times where he is unable to get the ball to his receivers. He very well may be the worst quarterback out of all the best teams in the NFL. He should be thanking the rest of his teammates for getting the W’s on Sunday where he doesn’t have been put under a spotlight by the media.

Right now at this point I believe the NFC Championship Game will be against the Atlanta Falcons and the New York Giants. The Giants and Falcons are two of the top teams in the NFC at this time and I feel will pull away from the rest of the NFC pack because of the talent they have on their teams. The Falcons have a great offensive scheme while the Giants are starting to show signs of their defensive dominance yet again.

Eric is the owner and editor-in-chief of the Camel Clutch Blog. Eric has worked in the pro wrestling industry since 1995 as a ring announcer in ECW and a commentator/host on television, PPV, and home video. Eric also hosted Pro Wrestling Radio on terrestrial radio from 1998-2009. Check out some of Eric's work on his IMDB bio and Wikipedia. Eric has an MBA from Temple University's Fox School of Business.

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